Challenge Mode Tips: Mage Edition

Warning: I type a bit dense, so I tried to increase readability a bit, but it still might be a bit rough, I"ll likely adjust it later but hopefully it isn't too big of a deal, this is mostly a niche thing anyhow.
Hello fellow mages, first off I don't personal challenge mode experience myself (I'm actually looking for it). But I figured I would make a thread that will benefit myself, and other mages looking for a solid grouping of tips for mages in Challenge Modes. Also a good place for mages to discuss challenge modes in one area. I will try to keep this updated with consolidated tips gathered from posts here.

Edit 2/17/14 (it's been a while I've actually quit the game and come back in the time frame people have posted on this... makes me feel special...) Anyhow just adding some content I noticed:
Due to recent changes Mastery is obviously not the full blown tops due to it not affecting shatter damage %. So you can primarily stack Int, simply because at that low of an ilvl it should payoff (I don't have maths just my accumulation of experience and mage-ness during this xpac). However you can most likely stay with Haste if you're a raider, and/or have a strong group it very well may be negligible. (can be debated).
In terms of Frost Bomb/ LB/ NT I personally utilize FB because it hits the most targets, (as stated by a few posters old/new) trash is the biggest time consumer. Frost bomb is strong against multiple targets (look at Akrean's frost guide for examples on bombs vs multiple targets) Single target frost bomb isn't significantly weak enough in single target (reference akrean again) to make a loss for single target. And hell if you're that particular you can just swap (It's not going to be that much of a deal breaker imo).
In terms of glyphs I would utilize Icy Veins (haste is good but the ice lance cleave translates a bit more with the damage modifier ((essentially what it is just in odd terms)) versus haste). CoC, a shatter CoC is pretty strong and if well timed can lead to some smexy burst (FB detonation synced with a pet nova and CoC = numbers!!!) Finally Ice Lance cleave glyph because it actually hits like a truck and makes a huge difference if for some odd ass reason you haven't noticed.
Minors really don't matter, except that I'd recommend that just about every mage use momentum glyph simply for its awesomeness, I do not think I could use regular blink ever again.

Talents:
Blazing Speed or Ice Floes I say these two for their mobility BS gets your places fast (duh) and Ice Floes just allows typical movement while maintaining your dps (real obvious but does take some adjustment time). PoM is technically a dps increase but I find it so minimal to not really be worth it as frost, where the movement bonuses provide a greater advantage.
Personal Choice for TS, IB or FG. Simply its preference only thing I would mention is that IB takes a GCD which can make a difference if you're cutting it close, it's surprising how much it can add up where FG is entirely passive and TS is of the GCD.
Frost Jaw if you know you'll need that silence, ice Ward otherwise. Ice Ward be be applied to your tank, or anyone else, it essentially can become an extra nova for you.
Ginvis, greater survivibility, removes need for invis pots. That said if invis pots aren't an issue Cauterize isn't a half bad choice due to it being passive. Also for GInvis you have to be wary of your usage with it and when your Invis pot section is coming (might be worth having a few just in case for whoops moments).
Bomb tier see above
Invocation, it's just so far above the others and after using it so much as annoying as it is, there are strong times to use it that won't affect time too much, right after combat (trash pack is dead/one left/everythings 10% or less start casting it use blink to catch up etc) or before a boss is a strong time to utilize it. Incanter's Ward just lacks the punch at this point, and RoP is too restricting.

Frost is the best spec according to experienced mages

Reforge to optimize for the challenge modes, raid optimization isn't fully optimal for challenge modes. (Preference between having better offensive stats for trash but maybe missing a bit on bosses, but hitting harder on trash. Bosses are standard raid level of 93, so 15% hit or trash which typically level 91)

Is an a guess as to what I think would be suitable. I picked Imp CS so you can keep dpsing but get interrupts off, which helps control large packs of mobs, eases mobility on a stray caster. I took water elemental just so its one less thing to manage. Ring of Frost for the mass CC it offers, but I could see Ice Ward and Frost jaw being useful but RoF being the most. Incanters Ward for reduced healing needed (although minor its something) but also the obvious less maintenance it requires. G Invis so Invis is up more, it can be used to negate mechanics and/or to run ahead quickly perhaps through a pack and land some CC, or to remove undesired effects. Frost bomb because it is viewed as the best against bigger packs of mobs, and works well with frost's shattering capabilities (pet nova timing)

Just my 2cents though, I have no experience so a correction would be nice.

As a mage who's done ~30 full gold CM sales and was 9/9 gold months ago, I can say this at least:

You will never use polymorph except two places: Four-pack of trash in Palace in the hallway after the elevator, and sheeping one battle-mender in the trash packs surrounding the third boss in Siege. The spell is utterly useless otherwise as you just AOE everything.

We had a mage and didn't use poly in those two places :P In siege we nuked the trash with the bombs the boss spawns and we killed the trash pack in the elevator in MSP. That being said, I personally believe (and from the time it took us) MSP is one of the - if not the- hardest challenge mode.

Edit: I wouldn't really use CS glyph, on Trash Packs you have so many FoF proccs that you are barely casting anyway and bosses can easily be interrupted by the tank and a melee.

You should be frost for golds as it has the best balance of AoE, single target and mobility.

For talents I went with PoM, Ice Barrier, Ring of Frost, Greater Invisibility, Nether Tempest and Invocation.
PoM and RoF are pretty much mandatory. Many pulls will require you to RoF to reduce damage/lazy interupt.
I didn't find enough places to really use Temporal Shield, so I just used Ice Barrier between pulls or whenever there was nothing to hit.
Greater Invisibility is a great survival cooldown if something goes tits up. It is also faster for trash skipping (more on that in a bit)
Nether Tempest seems to give me more BF procs than the other bombs. The only places I changed this was to take Frost Bomb on LARGE AoE packs (like the first in shado-pan)
Invocation because it's Invocation! Rune of Power was better on a couple of instances (can't remember which) where you get to stand still for good periods of time.

For glyphs I mostly ran with Ice Lance, Icy Veins and Cone of Cold. These did change a lot depending on which instance we were doing.

Some things to note:

You will never need Invisibility Potions, you have (Greater) Invisibility, so use it! This will allow you to use more DPS potions where other classes have to save them.
Use Alter Time to extend buffs such as cooldowns/potions and some enemy debuffs (resin on siege).
If you are serious about getting golds you should optimise your gear, don't just jump in with your raid reforges. You may even want to get new pieces that give you better stats. When I went in with raid gear I had more mastery than haste!
You will rarely use Polymorph. Maybe on Gekkan and Gate (Just before second boss)

That's all I can think of for now. PM me if you want to ask anything else. I'll try to keep an eye on the thread, but I don't post much :P

Some of you is talking about gearing/reforging properly, though not mentioning what this gearing/reforging is about. Can anyone make a few comments on this topic?

Some of the harder ones can be REALLY tight on time so you will need to optimise. The hit cap in heroic dungeons is lower than a raid boss, so you can take points out of hit and push more haste. Also keep in mind that set bonuses and sha-touched gems are disabled in challenge modes.

Some of the harder ones can be REALLY tight on time so you will need to optimise. The hit cap in heroic dungeons is lower than a raid boss, so you can take points out of hit and push more haste. Also keep in mind that set bonuses and sha-touched gems are disabled in challenge modes.

Hah, so they are! I thought they were 92!
Although, only 3-5 targets are 93 (the bosses). So as you have to kill 20-40 other targets that are mostly 91, hit is far less important than a raid encounter where 99% of your targets are 93/skull.

Apologies for the mess up there! I was told to lower my hit when i started out which I thought was due to boss levels.

So what exactly are the stat priorities for reforging? I've browsed through several topics and I've seen people going either all haste or crit till cap (how they get to cap I don't understand) then haste.

I've even tried using Ice Cap addon regarding stats but even that seems off. Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

For stat priorities it's a bit different than we are used to as frost. 1 int> 2haste> 2crit. Meaning you want to gem red slots full int, yellows int haste and blues int hit. Reforge everything into haste then when you can't get anymore reforged into haste reforge into crit.

One thing a lot of people don't know is that in CMs, FoF is king. Because you don't want mastery, using BF FFB when available is not important if you have FoF procs. When pulling large amounts of trash with a boss and using orb, you will literally let BF FFB fall off or be overwritten in favor of continuing to spam FoF ILs, BF FFB may as well be considered "instant cast frostbolt" for the purpose of your rotation as that's all it really is due to there being no tier bonuses to consider.

There's absolutely no chance that, when using Frost Bomb at that gear level, you will ever be so over loaded with Ice Lances that a BF can be ignored. Especially since you know exactly when your next BF is coming.

There's absolutely no chance that, when using Frost Bomb at that gear level, you will ever be so over loaded with Ice Lances that a BF can be ignored. Especially since you know exactly when your next BF is coming.

I'm not disputing that Ice Lance is the stronger spell on trash (nice edit). I've honestly never seen a time where it would be overwritten, especially since frost bomb is like 8 second cd in challenge modes.

Don't choose Glyphs based on some guide posted on a WoW fan site. Choose Glyphs/Talents/Spec based on what is the most beneficial for your current situation and based on the strategy your group uses. There is no correct answer for Glyph/Talent usage.